In general, a wind power generation apparatus is an apparatus that generates rotational power using lift and drag force caused when wind collides with blades and drives an electric generator using the rotational power so as to generate electricity.
Wind power generation apparatuses are basically classified, according to the orientation of a shaft, into a horizontal shaft type wind power generation apparatus and a vertical shaft type wind power generation apparatus.
The horizontal shaft type wind power generation apparatus is typically configured in such a way that a rotor having three blades is rotated about a horizontal shaft to drive a generator. This requires relatively strong wind in order to rotate the rotor, and therefore is installed along a shoreline and at high altitude areas where a great amount of wind blows. This horizontal shaft type wind power generation apparatus is suitable for large scale power generation because it is fabricated into a large size so as to generate power even with low wind speed.
On the other hand, the vertical shaft type wind power generation apparatus may rotate a rotor with an even lower amount of wind than the horizontal shaft type wind power generation apparatus, and thus may be installed at various places relatively irrespective of location. Further, since the vertical shaft type wind power generation apparatus may be fabricated in a small size, increasing generation efficiency of the vertical shaft type wind power generation apparatus has been actively studied.
A conventional vertical shaft type wind power generation apparatus includes a rotor to which a plurality of blades is vertically coupled, and a generator connected to the rotor. However, this conventional configuration has a problem in that the blades vertically coupled to the rotor are fixedly installed to disable adjustment in angle, which makes it impossible to generate optimal rotational power considering the direction of wind, resulting in restrictive generation efficiency.
Although adjusting the angle of the blades may be attempted, this may be very time consuming work because dismantling and reinstalling the blades after setting the angle of the respective blades is necessary. Moreover, measuring the angle on a per blade basis is very troublesome.
The conventional vertical shaft type wind power generation apparatus further has a problem in that an initial wind velocity required to start the rotor is high since the blades have the same standardized shape and have difficulty in adaptively reacting various changes of wind.